News: New Genetic Test

New genetic test can pinpoint rural  roots down to last few km London: Believe it or not, a new genetic test could soon enable people to discover the exact origins of their family to within a few kilometres, sy researchers.       A European team, led by University of Edinburgh, has carried out a research and found DNA analysis can accurately predict the origins of rural people to within 8km of their family's home, the 'Daily Mail' reported.       The findings suggest it may eventually be possible to work out the rural roots of city dwellers who have ancestors from different parts of the same country, the researchers say, The Edinburgh researchers, working with scientists in Italy and Croatia, tested whether the same analysis could be used to distinguish between people from the same country who were separated only by short distances.        The team, led by Jim Wilson, studied the genes of people whose four grand parents came from the same village in Scotland, Croatia or Italy None of the volunteers were related to each other. The results showed by studying genetic differences, it was possible to distinguish between individuals who live in villages that are only  8km apart.        The researchers predicted the correct village of origin for everyone involved in the Italian study, 96% of the Scottish sample and 89% of people in the Croatian sample. They concluded that the pattern could be explained by the fact that, long ago, people tended to marry within their own community. After many generations. the different villaged developed their genetic fingerprint, which can be picked up.        Lead researcher Wilson said, "it was quite surprising and quite exciting because we've known for a number of years that you can use the variation that people have in their DNA to tell whether they're African or East Asian or Native American - people sho come from different continents."